Jalisco state mass grave death total rises to 42 -- UPDATED

Excelsior now says that the total is 42.  Also updated with corrected count of detainees
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Another four bodies were found in the La Barca, Jalisco mass grave Friday bringing the death toll to 37, according to Mexican news reports.

As of Sunday evening, according to Excelsior news daily, the death toll in La Barca is at 42.

According to an El Universal wire service report featured on the website of El Diario de Coahuila news daily, all but two of the dead were men.  Mexican Procuraduria General de la Republica (PGR) or attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam, was quoted saying that 31 bodies have been examined, but none of them are the two PGR ministerial agents who went missing two weeks ago.

The grave was found after police detained 20 individuals of a kidnapping ring, including local police agents almost two weeks ago.  Information from the raid led investigators to the La Barca site.  Apparently the gravesite extends over an area which straddles the Michoacan and Jalisco state borders, and include Villa Hermosa municipality in Michoacan, as well as La Barca municipality.

Michoacan is currently one of Mexico's most violent states, as drug cartels have reacted with violence to indigenous self defense groups, which were formed stop encroachment on Indian land considered sacred.

Meanwhile in Tancitaro municipality, a Mexican Army road patrol exchanged gunfire with suspected members of Los Caballeros Templarios drug cartel Friday.  The Proceso wire service report did not detail casualties in this latest encounter.

Armed suspects were caught at around 1600 hrs.  According to the wire report, the encounter was the third in Tancitaro municipality since November 16th, when self defense groups, colloquially known as autodefensa took control of Tepalcatepec and Buenavista Tomatlan municipalities.

The report also mentions a separate shooting involving drug cartel shooters taking place in November 19th in Tancitaro municipality near the village of Zirimbo.  In that incident, cartel shooters fired their weapons on a residence.  Casualties in that shooting were not detailed in the wire report.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com

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31 bodies unburied in narcofosas in La Barca, Jalisco

Borderland Beat

I added some quick reference material for background info. for perspective incase anyone might need it.

On Monday Nov. 4, the military took control of the port of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, this included the the main offices of the local and federal government operating in that municipality.  

According to reports in the local press, the military arrived Lazaro Cardenas around 7:30 a.m. and from that moment on troops began patrolling the streets of the city and its surroundings.

Mexican Troops take control of Key Port 

The missing PGR agents instigated the search in La Barca.

The last contact agents  had with their supervisors was on Sunday Nov. 3rd between 7 and 8 p.m. Later it was learned, they had not arrived at their at their destination (BOM), base of mixed operation, in Briseñas, Cumuato. They were feared kidnapped.

Immediately elements were dispatched to search for them. They "combed" the area, all night and early morning, but to no avail. Later on, that Monday morning Nov. 4, they found the green pick up truck  in which the missing PGR federal agents,  René Rojas Marquez and Gabriel Quijadas Santiago had last been seen driving the night before. It was burned, abandoned on land located at kilometer 4, in the vicinity Cumuato, on the highway from Sahuayo to Vista Hermosa.

22 municipal police in Vista Hermosa, along with three civilians were detained,
on Monday, Nov. 11.  A federal judge who specialized in criminal searches, interception of communications, and bail, granted an order to implement a precautionary measure to arraign 20 municipal police officers of Vista Hermosa, Michoacan, who were arrested as part of the investigations by the disappearance of two federal policemen.

Sources at the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) reported that the arraignment period for investigation will be 40 days. Research will be conducted to ascertain the whereabouts of the agents René Rojas Marquez and Gabriel Quijadas Santiago.

The Attorney General indicated that two policemen and three civilians were released because from the investigation because they were no longer thought to be involved in the disappearance of the PGR agents. 

Detainees who gave their statements to the Deputy Attorney Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO) in Mexico City, provided information on a warehouse that was used as a safe house. So began an operation in the town of La Barca, which was the location of the first body.

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